Various types of data are stored on the hard drives of computers. Such data may include personal confidential information concerning individuals. This data may include their social security numbers, financial information, health information and private telephone numbers as examples. The hard drives are also used to store corporate information which may include proprietary information such as developing products, customer lists, and business plans. The government may store confidential information including highly classified information on the hard drives.
When it is desired to replace the computer, the data must be removed from the hard drive so that it cannot be misused by unscrupulous individuals. Merely erasing the data by using the computer commands is not sufficient as the data can be recaptured. This is true even if the hard drive is removed for upgrade purposes. However, even if the hard drive is removed, something must be done to destroy the data.
One way of ensuring that the data cannot be used or recovered from an unwanted hard drive is to completely destroy the hard drive. This has been accomplished in the past by completely shredding the entire hard drive. However, as the hard drive is encased in a metal, the complete destruction involves the shredding of a relatively large volume of metal that requires a lot of energy.
Additionally, hard dives use rare earth elements in their construction. Rare earth elements include cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb) and yttrium (Y). It is becoming desirable to recycle such elements. The complete destruction of a hard drive does not readily permit the recapture of such elements.
It is thus desirable to have a process and apparatus for destroying the data on a hard drive that doesn't destroy the entire hard drive leaving at least a portion of the casing as well as the hub and magnets remaining to recapture the components of the hard drive containing the rare earth elements.
An example of a hard drive data destroying device that does not destroy the entire hard drive is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,851,404 entitled Hard Drive Shredding Device, issued Oct. 7, 2014 by Clark et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Another example of such a hard drive data destroying device is shown in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/202,234 entitled Hard Drive Shredding Device, filed Mar. 12, 2013 by Clark et al., the disclosure of which is also incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.